Inmate sentenced in killing that changed how prison system houses nonviolent offenders

January 18, 2012|By Steve Schmadeke, Chicago Tribune reporter

A convicted Chicago murderer pleaded guilty Wednesday and received a second life sentence for strangling his sleeping Will County cellmate in 2009, a slaying that highlighted flaws in how the state housed nonviolent prisoners.

Richard Conner, 40, is among the state's most dangerous inmates, and he was placed in a cell with Jameson Leezer, 37, a petty criminal near the end of his five-year sentence for car theft, at Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet, even though prison records labeled Leezer as "vulnerable."

"It just seems crazy he was ever put in a cell with this guy," Assistant State's Attorney Steve Platek said after Wednesday's sentencing.

After the Tribune reported on the case in 2009, the state changed its procedures for double-celling inmates, requiring correctional staff to investigate a prisoner's history of violence in an attempt to prevent similar deaths.

The two men ended up in Stateville cell F226 after Conner, who was locked up in solitary confinement at the super-maximum-security Tamms Correctional Center, tried to hang himself and damaged his kidneys. Stateville is one of the few state prisons that offers dialysis treatment.

Leezer was transferred to Stateville from the medium-security prison in Pinckneyville for allegedly making a sexual comment to a prison guard. Two weeks later, on April 2, 2009, he was found strangled in his cell.

Several inmates told the Tribune after Leezer's death that the two men had asked to be separated. Stateville employees also told the Tribune that Leezer, who was named by authorities as a white supremacist gang member, protested when Conner, an African-American, was placed in his 8-by-12-foot cell.

Conner allegedly told a prison worker that he would kill Leezer, according to a 2010 lawsuit filed by Leezer's family. The lawsuit was settled in November under undisclosed terms.

In a letter to a Tribune reporter before the murder, Conner wrote that he heard voices "telling me to kill myself and hurt others."

Conner wrote last month to the Will County judge for his murder case, saying his family had asked him to get mental health treatment so "an incident like this incident won't happen again." He suggested he would plead guilty if he could be housed in Tamms' mental health unit.

Platek said the judge didn't have the power to order that.

Leezer grew up in Bolingbrook and Lisle and had a history of drug abuse. He had been incarcerated four times in the 17 years before his death on burglary and theft convictions.

Conner, who has the words "Love Mom" tattooed on his chest, was born on the South Side and sent as a young boy to live with an aunt in Alabama after his mother was fatally shot in 1975.

He returned to Chicago as a teenager, joined a gang, and become a drug user and dealer, court records show. In 1991, he killed a West Side jewelry store clerk.

He was sentenced to life in prison and, experts said, had nothing to lose when he was put in a cell with Leezer.